Do you remember your first kiss?

Saturday, 30 March 2013

40 years ago, on
31st March 1973, the album *“Dark Side of The Moon”* by Pink Floyd made
its first appearance in the UK charts. It was to remain in the charts
for 5 years, finally exiting in May 1978.It went on to sell
approximately 50 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best
selling albums of all time. The strange thing was, although other best
sellers like “Thriller” and “Rumours” sold similar numbers, they were
commercial accessible albums with tracks that appealed to people aged 8
to 80. Dark Side wasn’t like that. It was “Prog-Rock” and back in
1973, the only people who listened to prog-rock were hippies,
left-wingers and members of the underground movement. When it was
first released, me and my friends wouldn’t have been seen dead with it.
We were into Bowie, T. Rex, Alice Cooper, Slade and Roxy Music. But
somehow, over a period of time the album grew on everyone, and by the
spring of ’74 it was very cool to be seen with a copy of “Dark Side”
tucked under your arm. It had gone from being “underground” to being
“cool” and album sales shot up. All this is not really surprising, when
you consider the content of the album. It’s about physical violence,
travelling, money, religion, madness and death, subjects not easily
ignored. It’s a brilliant album, and if you haven’t heard it before,
then go download a copy now and check it out.

It is definitely in my
top five favourite albums of all time, and I can’t see a day when it
will lose its slot in my all time favourites.